‘We need to be prepared’: Virtually certain that humanity will experience hottest year so far this decade
A potent brew of greenhouse gases and a naturally-occurring El Niño are expected to push global heat to levels as yet unexperienced by humans in the next five years.
There’s now a 66 per cent likelihood that the planet will breach the Paris Agreement temperature goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (C), between now and 2027, according to a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) update on Wednesday.
While the world will not permanently stay at 1.5C, WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said the agency was “sounding the alarm” that hitting the benchmark would happen with more frequency.
The update made for grim but not entirely unexpected reading as scientists have warned in report after report of the impact that emissions, largely from burning fossil fuels, is having on global heat.
In 2022, the average global temperature was 1.15C above the pre-industrial period. The threat of breaching 1.5C has increased at pace since 2015 when the chance of it happening was close to zero, WMO reported.
Beyond 1.5C, climate impacts will be more severe on people and the natural world, the leading climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned earlier this year.
It’s also virtually certain (98 per cent) that at least one of the coming five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the hottest year that humanity has ever experienced.
The current hottest year on record is 2016 when there were record-breaking carbon emissions and also an exceptionally strong El Niño climate pattern.
The world has experienced a La Niña for the past three years which has an opposing influence of cooling the planet and temporarily reining in long-term warming, WMO explained.
La Niña ended in March 2023 and an El Niño is expected to develop in the coming months before really baring its teeth in 2024.
The developing El Niño will amplify the already-extreme impacts caused by the climate crisis, pushing temperatures into “uncharted territory,” said Prof. Taalas.
“This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared,” he said.
In April, Bangladesh, India, Laos and Thailand experienced record-breaking heat and humidity. Last month also saw a record-breaking heatwave in Spain, Portugal and northern Africa which scientists discovered was made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis.
The global temperature rise is also impacting oceans, making them hotter and more acidic, melting glaciers and ice sheets, and exacerbating extreme weather.
The Arctic is experiencing disproportionately high impacts and warming at three times the rate of the rest of the world.
Rainfall patterns are likely to be disrupted by the temperature rise. Compared to the average across the past 30 years, May to September 2023-2027 could see increased rainfall in Africa’s Sahel region, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and reduced rainfall for this season over the Amazon and parts of Australia.
